Orrin Woodward

Former Guinness World Record Holder for largest book signing ever, Orrin Woodward is a NY Times bestselling author of And Justice For All along with RESOLVED & coauthor of LeaderShift and Launching a Leadership Revolution. His books have sold over one million copies in the financial, leadership and liberty fields. RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions For LIFE made the Top 100 All-Time Best Leadership Books and the 13 Resolutions are the framework for the top selling Mental Fitness Challenge personal development program.

Orrin made the Top 20 Inc. Magazine Leadership list & has co-founded two multi-million dollar leadership companies. Currently, he serves as the Chairman of the Board of the LIFE. He has a B.S. degree from GMI-EMI (now Kettering University) in manufacturing systems engineering. He holds four U.S. patents, and won an exclusive National Technical Benchmarking Award.

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The LIFE Business

Posted by Orrin Woodward on February 22, 2013

The LIFE Business: Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady

Chris Brady wrote an article on the LIFE business several days ago that I felt compelled to share in its entirety with my readers. As part of our LIFE Training, we share a systematic process to improve anything called PDCA. Chris’s article shares the key PDCAs that we applied to create the compensated community business of our dreams. With the best prices, products, compensation plan, free trips, and leadership rolled into one, I am proud to represent the LIFE business wherever I go.

The LIFE Business and LeaderShift

If someone is already chasing a dream, then he or she ought to become a customer of LIFE to improve his or her leadership and people skills. For instance, LeaderShift, Oliver DeMille’s and my new book, is being sold across the world. It’s this type of information that is available within the community.

The LIFE Business Community

If, on the other hand, someone is stuck in the subways of life with no way out, then he or she ought to become a member of the community and start climbing! Either way, the LIFE community is happy to serve. Here is Chris’s fantastic article!

The Impetus behind the LIFE Business

There is something really right about a business that allows people to get started for a relatively small amount of money, work at their own pace, be their own boss, experience the responsibilities of business ownership in an actual business endeavor without huge downside risks, have the potential for high upsides, and get the tax advantages that come with business enterprise. These attributes (and others) are what originally attracted me to the profession of networking. However, as I experienced more and more of what goes on in certain parts of this industry, I quickly realized there were several things I hated about it!

I was not alone. Along with my friends Orrin Woodward, Tim Marks, Bill Lewis, George Guzzardo, Claude Hamilton, and Dan Hawkins, we founded the LIFE company in an attempt to build a business to not only be the model of what could be in this profession, but what should be, as well. In other words, we launched LIFE to fix what we didn’t like about the industry while preserving the parts we felt were right about it.

What the LIFE Business Is Doing

Below is a list of my beefs with the industry, and what we are doing at LIFE to make it right.

1. No True Customer Focus – Our fix: at LIFE, we not only have a customer focus but a customer requirement. If a LIFE member does not develop at least 50PV in monthly customer flow after a brief apprenticeship period, he or she will not be paid any bonus on group volume. Also, we have the 3 for FREE customer acquisition program, in which any LIFE member, and even any customer, who gets three customers subscribing to the same or higher value package gets his/her products the next month for free! Also we have sales competitions with bonuses for the top finishers, as well as special bonus incentives on sales of particular products. We are also about to announce a sales bonus chart designed to give the smallest participants in the LIFE business a huge sales margin on products sold to help them begin earning more money sooner!

2. Gaudy Lifestyle Representations and Outrageous Income Claims – Our fix: in our business presentations we give only basic scenario-based income representations (as in, “if you build a business that looks like this, the way the pay plan works, it would result in X amount of pay for that month”), with the largest scenario depicting approximately $9,000 per month in income. (See our Compensation Plan brochure for this). We don’t show cheesy lifestyle pictures or videos, bikini-clad girls on yachts, or shiny bling to try and attract people to a false expectation. Our presentation focuses upon things such as obtaining more free time, better financial security, more focus upon family, travel, church and charity, etc. (We don’t go as far as talking about more time with in-laws, however!) Also, being a new company, we’ve just now completed our first full calendar year in business (year 2012), and therefore can now release an Income Disclosure Statement to inform prospective participants and properly manage their expectations (look for this in the coming weeks).

3. The Host Company Keeps Too Much of the Money – and as a result, the people in the field get to fight over the scraps. Our fix: our pay plan is currently putting approximately 70% of gross product volume (PV) into the field in the various forms of compensation. The company was not just founded by people who had come from the field, but from people who have determined to stay in the field.

4. High Sign Up Costs: We have heard of companies charging hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to join. Our fix: keep it low! Our recommended sign up cost, including sample products (three CDs, a hard cover book, a sticker, access to the LIFE business management website, and two tickets to a LIFE Live event) is just $89.99, in which the products are optional. Our goal is to keep it “less than the cost of a tank of gas!”

5. Poor Guarantees: some are confusing, very limited, or difficult to enact. Our fix: simple and straight forward, a 30 day no-questions-asked money back guarantee for all our products, including the sign up cost.

6. Trips for Top Performers: While there is nothing wrong with this, we wanted to do something a little different. Our fix: we put two very exciting trips into the compensation program for people with relatively early progress up the performance bonus chart. One is at the 6,000 pv per month level, the other is at the 15,000 pv per month level. Also, these are not business trips in disguise, but legitimate vacations. The recipient selects the trip of his/her choice from the list of available options, and takes the trip when he or she chooses. (See Incentive Trips for more information).

7. High Priced Products – our experience is that many networking companies charge super high prices for their products and then give some of this back to the field and claim that this is their “profit margin,” when in fact, the products are so overpriced no one could ever sell them for that price to begin with. Our fix: keep the prices low! For the type of informational products that LIFE specializes in producing, our competition is almost always 20 to 200% higher. For instance, our CDs sell for just $10, while most on the market in each of our “8F” categories (Faith, family, fitness, finances, friendship, freedom, following, and fun) can be found for sale from $12 to $67! Also, in our subscription packages that include books, we almost always sell the book in that month’s subscription for ten to twenty five percent below list price, as it is just rolled into a standard subscription price that doesn’t fluctuate based upon that months’ book price.

8. Inferior Products – what does this mean? It means that specific products that can easily be commoditized (produced by someone else at a cheaper price or better value, over time) stay in the company’s portfolio long after they are no longer competitive in the marketplace. This leaves those in the field leveraging their personal reputation to sell a product that is no longer the best on the market. Our fix: Informational products such as those LIFE produces cannot become commoditized because they are unique – meaning, by specific authors and speakers whose communication styles, delivery, humor, entertainment value, etc. are not duplicate-able. While the information can perhaps be mimicked by another, the brand cannot be copied.

9. Products that Don’t Matter: The other part about representing commodity products is that they really have no ability to make someone’s life better. Why spend your valuable time and energy working at something that doesn’t do any good? As my friend Tim Marks said, “I don’t want to waste my life selling tube socks and lawn chairs!” My favorite quote is attributed to D.L. Moody: “Our greatest fear should not be that we won’t succeed, but that we’ll succeed at something that doesn’t matter.” As for me, although it’s possible to make money selling commodities, I want what I do to count in the lives of people (and yes, I understand that we all need commodities to survive, but you get what I’m saying). I want to make a positive difference in the world. So our fix: sharing information such as LIFE produces has helped people get out of debt, repair broken relationships, grow personally, break addictions, grow spiritually, and, as the tag line says, “live the life they’ve always wanted.” To me, THAT’s something that matters.

But the LIFE Business Isn’t Perfect

Now don’t get me wrong. We don’t have the LIFE business perfected yet, as that would be impossible. But we are working daily to make it better and better, in an attempt to deliver exactly what people want and expect in an informational product company, and for a potential business enterprise for many. Also, while we believe that our products are for everybody, we DON’T think the business building aspect of LIFE is for everybody. It is only for those who are prepared to work hard, who are looking for something more in life than they can currently accomplish, who enjoy working with and helping other people, and who have a long-term vision and can stay the course.

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This entry was posted on February 22, 2013 at 8:14 am and is filed under LIFE Leadership.
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46 Responses to “The LIFE Business”

Maura Gallianisaid

Thank you, Orrin, for posting Chris’ article. It offers a great review and reminder about what this business and this community of LIFE is all about — improving and changing me, the LIFE community, and surely our country one person at a time! Fired up!! 🙂

Terrysaid

Love it, loved it on Chris’s blog…shout it from the mountain tops! No one is perfect, but what better than a community of leaders holding each other accountable and chasing continuous improvement based on Biblical Principles.
T

Chad Waterssaid

It is great to be part of a community that has leaders with a tremendous drive for excellence. I appreciate the attitude of continuous improvement that has lead us to the Life business we have today. The exciting thing is that we are only beginning. Thanks Orrin!

Matt Mielkesaid

When we were introduced to the concept of compensated communities, I had no idea a networking industry even existed. I’m so thankful God protected me from the history of networking because I looked at the LIFE business concepts with fresh, unadulterated eyes. When I would hear comments like “they’ll take advantage of you,” or “be careful it’s a scam,” I was seriously confused. That is not at all what this community stood for and the leadership was unmatched anywhere. Just the fact the leaders would say from stage how this isn’t perfect, they aren’t perfect, but they strive for excellence was a testimony to their humility on stage. What most impressed me was their humility off stage. Who they were on stage paled in comparison to who they were/are off stage. I wanted to follow their example and more importantly I wanted my family to follow their examples.

We joined and never looked back. Michelle and I have been home for 3 years together, because of the income opportunity the LIFE business provides, raising our 3 children and leading hundreds of others to do the same.

Welcome to the new normal, individuals and families learning and working together for a dream and a cause that is going to rock this world.

Thanks for the LIFE business!! MAtt

Chris Phelpssaid

We just got 10 inches of snow yesterday, clearly unsafe to be out in it, but yet, the bosses seem to want to make yuo feel guilty for not putting your life and others in danger…I am so thankful I have a vehicle that will take me away from that. Now I just need to get on it. Thanks PC and RT for everything you do…
Chris

Wendi Witkowski Team Liberatorssaid

Orrin and the fellow founders of Life, I thank you, thank you, thank you! I discovered networking in 1995 and after 15 years, I was never able to make it work to a level of stickiness. I saw all the issues you just mentioned and to my dispair, I had just about given up on getting a pipeline income. Six months after that, I was shared a vision about Team and saw that this was different!!!! I truly believe that if God puts a vision/passion in our heart, he will give us the vehicle in which to achieve it. God’s timing is not our timing but it’s up to us to keep getting up and chasing the passion/vision inside us. I am so blessed to be a part of this amazing Life business. Thin threads!!

Way to keep the dream alive Wendi!!! And congrats on just getting turbo 10 and director wrapped up last week and getting to spend a great day yesterday at Tim and Amy Marks house!!! You are on your way to freedom

Rick Satterstromsaid

I am learning so much being involved with this project that it’s hard to believe this even exists! Chris’ article is just what I needed at this point of my journey- everything is explained perfectly. Thank you Orrin for posting it and thank you to everyone that makes this possible! HOPE is an awesome thing to have back in my life!

Go SWAT Team!

J & P Harteissaid

Thanks, Orrin, for posting Chris’ Blog article……..it’s a quick refresher course on everything that right with the LIFE business! What a great opportunity for everyone! We appreciate you, & all of the PC, for always paving the way for all of us!

Anthony Nietosaid

Now that is awesome! I love the fact that this is a company lead by leaders not owners or managers. The fact that you all are from the field and stay in the field is so refreshing because it means we ALL have the same chance.

This is right on! Orrin Woodward, Chris Brady, George Guzzardo, Claude Hamilton, Bill Lewis, Dan Hawkins, Wayne MacNamara, and Tim Marks have such great blogs! I love the information being taught in the LIFE business. Thank you!

Ken Hendonsaid

My wife and I had a large multilevel business for many years which provided a very comfortable lifestyle for us and some of our organization which we chose to give up for the reasons you mention. At one point our activity dropped off considerably. Our enthusiasm could not be maintained for a business that fell short in so many areas. Even though our income, perks, and status would have lasted many more years, we would never again feel the honest pride which is central to the LIFE business. We placed our trust in you and the PC. It is truly wonderful to see our trust fulfilled in the LIFE business. Thank You!

Chrissaid

Thank you so much to the founders of LIFE and their courage and leadership. This business has been a blessing to many families and including my own. Being a Youth Minister for the past 14 years I have always tried to find ways to help families to be “families” again. It has already affected many lives here in the San Francisco Bay Area and with this opportunity, people are seeing that in any of the 8 F’sthey can have the LIFE they always wanted. God bless you and the leaders you lead.

CI-AW!!

Bob Rasmussensaid

I read somewhere in our business education, that if you are going to invest time and money into a business for your future, the main thing you should base it on is the leadership of the company. It sure feels good to read an article like this and understand that tens of thousands have made the right choice based on this kind of leadership. The founders of the LIFE business have definitely walked the talk and have all our best interest in mind. Outstanding!

robert wilcoxsaid

I cannot imagine what it would have been like to be at that particular moment when Orrin and Chris sat down and said “whatever is wrong we will fix it” You two have done just that! I have never met such men who hold their standards as high as you guys when it comes to Character, Integrity, Honor, Courage and Perseverance! Now .. thanks to what you started and chose to finish … millions of lives will be touched …Thank you!

Kevin Hammsaid

Orrin, Thanks for forwarding Chris’ article. The integrity of the founders will be made known in time. I can’t imagine that the mad rush for membership will not come soon. I look at the results in our life to date and look forward to the day when there are multiple people on my teams with similar stories. What a legacy to be doing something that is intrinsically worth it. Chris’ article paints that picture beautifully. Thanks for the opportunity.

Imelda Romansaid

This article is so spot on Orrin! Chris did a great job explaining why the LIFE business is so different than any other networking company that exists today.

Leadershift is already making an impact! I was talking to the Superindent of one of the smaller school districts here in Wisc that I have known for a while and telling him about your’s and Oliver’s new book – referred him to your blog that talks more about Leadershift and where to order and he is placing a pre-order of (what he said) 50 or more books that he can give to his administrators and staff as an end of the school year gift. He said, “normally I give gift cards to show my appreciation, but I think this book will mean a lot more to them than one night out for dinner.” I love what we get to do!

John Mossnersaid

Great stuff! You could even add that the business structure WORKS! Team Approach vs the old spider ball approach kept me around long enough to understand how awesome this business really is. Thx again for all you’ve done and continue to do.

Alayshasaid

Nancy Popesaid

Orrin, I love the fact that the founders of LIFE are constantly working to improve what LIFE offers not just it’s field who is out sharing the materials, but improving what our customers are purchasing. Thank you!!

As someone that has had experience with the rest, I can really be proud of representing LIFE and being part of this great leadership and group of people, I had never met so many people in one place striving together as a team both to help people and to love them where they are and to even better themselves while at it!
LT-IT

I love the PC’s courage to challenge the industry status quo for the better! The LIFE business is incredible and I know that it is only going to get better over time. Couldn’t imagine myself in community with a better group of people.